Jon Lancaster Secures GP2 Seat With Ocean

Jon Lancaster will race in the GP2 Series this year having secured a drive with Ocean Racing Technology.

The 23-year-old from Leeds began testing with the Portuguese squad in Barcelona today. He makes the move to GP2 after a quiet 2011 campaign in which he entered one round of Formula 2 and two rounds of Auto GP, winning a race in the latter at Donington Park.

Previous to that he raced in Formula Renault 3.5 for two years, winning one race. In 2008 he raced in Formula 3 for ART, coming third at the prestigious Masters at Zandvoort. That was after he finished runner-up in the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2007, his first year in car racing. His career began with promise in karting where he finished runner-up in the world championship in 2005.

“Words cannot describe how I feel about this opportunity,” said Lancaster, who joins fellow GP2 rookie Nigel Melker at the Tiago Monteiro­-owned team.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs over the past few years, but now that I have this opportunity, I'm looking forward to getting the job done.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has worked so hard to make this happen and I look forward to working with Ocean Racing Technology.”